


two bodies pressed together

by neyvenger (jjjat3am)



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Domestic, Friends to Lovers, Injury, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-26
Updated: 2016-04-26
Packaged: 2018-06-04 16:04:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6665197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jjjat3am/pseuds/neyvenger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"If I weren't a footballer, I would be a footballer's wife."  - Kun Aguero</p><p>or</p><p>The one where Kun has to retire from football early and becomes Leo's househusband instead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pipitass](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pipitass/gifts).



> Or, the fic affectionately dubbed as the WAG au. Based on [this gif](https://66.media.tumblr.com/e9c04c6405afadd314d92f2922036811/tumblr_mghpabDZdp1s0xmjwo1_500.gif), because whose wife would he be if not Leo's?
> 
> Big thank you to pipitass for claiming this prompt and giving me the push to finish it, and to the Footie Spring Fling team for their care.
> 
> Thank you also to Mai, for the help with Spanish and for beta-ing and for generally sticking around for this story, and encouraging me.
> 
> Title is from Jay Brannan's ["Housewife"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNxzFPTA1y4), which doubles as the soundtrack to this fic.
> 
> Hover over the Spanish for translations.
> 
> Enjoy!

 

 

The first time Kun meets Lionel Messi, he doesn’t know who he is. This is not unusual. The Argentina U21 team is a privilege most people don’t get to receive, but it isn’t superstardom or your name splattered across billboards. Leo is just Leo, and Kun is just Kun, and they’re talking about Nike shoes at a crowded table full of their mutual friends.

 

They forget about each other when they stop talking, in the visceral way of teenage boys and spoiled cats. Kun leans over to drape himself half in Lucas’ lap, Leo ducks to hear something Pablo is telling him.

 

That’s how it starts.

  


*

  


The second time Kun meets Lionel Messi is when he slots him a back pass, clumsy and impossible to control. Leo brings it down to his feet like it’s the easiest thing on the planet, taps it in past Oscar almost as an afterthought.

 

Kun stands stock still, watching his back as he walks away. A small, hunched over silhouette against the blue Argentinian sky.

 

He takes a deep breath and runs after him.

  


*

  


They room together for the U21 World Cup, somewhat unwillingly, because they were both secretly hoping for Oscar. The other guys take the piss, just a little.

 

“The two kids of the team rooming together!” “I bet it’s so they can hold hands when they’re scared of the dark!”

 

Kun laughs, shrugs it off. He’s been playing as a pro for Independiente since he was 15, lived through the dark underbelly of Buenos Aires. To his knowledge, he’s never been a kid.

 

He’ll hold Messi’s hand though, if he asks. Won’t even tease him about it.

He doubts Messi will. The guy barely even speaks, much less asks for help.

 

The first night they room together, they watch each other warily over the space between their beds. It’s like clockwork: Kun will look up and catch Messi looking away, and then watch him until Messi almost catches him staring. Back and forth.

 

Finally, Messi lets out a sigh of frustration, roots around in his bag for something before finally dangling the PS controller between them like a peace offering.

 

“Do you play ProEvo?” There, finally a language Kun can understand.

 

“Yeah,” Kun says, and then adds: “I’m pretty good though, don’t be mad when I beat you.”

 

“Dibs on Argentina.”

 

They play all night. Kun is pretty good, but Leo is better.

 

It’s not an unfamiliar feeling.

 

*

 

They exchange numbers after the tournament ends, buoyant on their shiny new trophy and pure adrenaline. Kun scribbles his number on a piece of paper, uses Leo’s golden boot trophy as a hard surface.

 

Leo laughs and laughs, a weird hiccupping giggle along with a smile that lights up his entire face. Kun pokes his cheek and frowns playfully, has a brief thought and squashes it immediately.

 

He doesn’t expect Leo to call, and he doesn’t.

 

He isn’t disappointed. He isn’t.

 

Kun has a league to win, he doesn’t have time for cute boys with hidden smiles and feet made of gold.

 

*

  


_La Doble Visera_ is the most beautiful stadium. It’s even more beautiful, lit up before a derby, a sea of white and red, the noise of a thousand voices raised in familiar words, unbearably loud.

 

[Solo le pido a Dios, que Agüero juegue para siempre](//the%20only%20thing%20I%20ask%20of%20god%20is%20for%20Aguero%20to%20play%20forever)

 

The _Doble Visera_ calls out his name and Kun feels like he’s flying. In that moment, he’s sure; he’ll play for his team forever, will bring them joy and trophies, and score goals that’ll shake the stadium to its cement roots. He never wants to leave this behind, not for anyone.

 

[Y que juege en Independiente, para toda la alegria la gente](that%20he%20plays%20for%20Independiente,%20for%20everyone's%20happiness)

 

Twenty minutes later, one of the opposing players slams into him, sending his skinny frame flying. It’s fine, he’ll get up and play on, simple and boring, and nothing he hasn’t done a thousand times before.

 

His leg snaps under him like an old dry tree branch.

 

Kun looks down.

 

There’s red on the green grass and for a moment he thinks it’s confetti. Somebody screams. It’s not until Lucas is by his side, calling for a medic, that Kun realizes it’s him that’s screaming. He closes his mouth.

 

Then, the pain hits.

 

*

 

[que Agüero juegue para siempre](that%20Ag%C3%BCero%20plays%20forever)

 

_*_

 

The fracture is complicated and cruel. The doctors do all they can, the physios encourage him, the club pours money they can’t spare into his recovery.

 

Every time his eyes stray to the huge ungainly cast that spans from his hip to his toes, he gets angry. He avoids looking at it, but it’s so huge and ugly that he can’t help it. So he’s just always angry instead.

 

To their credit, the club doesn’t drop him.

 

Instead, they pay for his expenses and promise to pay his salary up until the end of the season, and they establish a fund to help him after. Oscar brings Kun’s jersey to every game for the rest of the season, lays it on the soft grass behind his goal. The fans chant his name even though Kun isn’t playing.

 

Lucas visits him in the hospital. He sits by his bedside, and then slithers into bed with him after a moment of consideration. Kun finally allows himself to break open and cry.

 

It’s not fair. It’s not fair. They were supposed to be crying from joy at their win.

 

They weren’t supposed to be crying because Kun can never play football again.

  


*

  


The doctors are worried. His family is worried. Kun knows this, but he can’t exactly bring himself to care. He almost doesn’t speak, except in one word answers.

 

“Yes.” “No.” “Maybe.”

 

They think he’s depressed. They’re probably right. The stitches in his leg keep itching and he tries not to scratch them, tries not to look at them too long, because he starts imagining the steel bolts and plates hidden under his skin, in places where his bones used to be.

 

One day, the phone rings.

 

“Kun? I’m sorry. It took me a while to find your number.” It’s Leo.

 

Kun thinks about that pass, the effortless way Leo had tapped in that goal and feels a flash of jealousy so strong it almost makes him sick. Or maybe it’s the painkillers; they’ve been fucking with his stomach lately.

 

“Kun?”

 

“Yeah, I’m here.”

 

“I’m sorry about your leg.”

 

“Me too.”

 

Then they lapse into silence. Kun listens to Leo breathe on the other side of the ocean, counts the cracks in the plaster for the hundredth time today. Usually, he’d be the one to fill the silence with chatter and jokes, anything

to make Leo laugh. Now, he’s content to sit in silence.

 

His leg is a dull, throbbing pain. He’ll have to ask them to up his dosage again.

 

“That’s all I wanted to say,” Leo says, eventually. “Bye, Kun.”

 

“Bye.”

 

And that’s the end of it.

 

*

 

Kun doesn’t expect Leo to call again after that, but he does. Once a week, usually on Wednesdays, but sometimes on Thursdays, always at noon. The first few weeks, Kun doesn’t talk much. Leo fills the silence instead.

 

He talks more in those few weeks than he probably has in his entire life. Or so Kun thinks. He doesn’t even know Leo, not really, not his favorite color, his favorite drink or the name of the pet he had as a child.

 

He does know how Leo’s pass feels when it lands on his toes with perfect precision. He knows what it feels like to send a ball into his blind spot without looking because he knows Leo will be there. He knows all of these things. He wishes they still counted for something.

 

They took out his stitches yesterday.

 

Leo keeps calling and he keeps talking; about the seagulls in Barcelona who’re determined to shit on him, about his funny friend Geri and the times seagulls did shit on him, and various other anecdotes from La Masia that have Kun smiling before he can stop himself.

 

Eventually, Kun starts talking back.

 

“I had my first physio appointment today.” “How was it?” “Shit.”

 

“I walked two steps today.” “How was it?” “Hurts.”

 

“I walked the whole hallway today.” “How was it?” “Slow.”

 

“I came home today.” “How is it?” “Weird.”

 

And it is weird, getting winded halfway up the stairs, his parents rushing to help him when it’s the last thing he wants. It’s crying in the middle of the night, because the pills are too far away and he doesn’t want to wake anyone, and it hurts, _it hurts_.

 

It never stops.

 

Leo becomes his confidant, his phone call the brightest part of his week. They talk about everything and nothing for what seems like minutes, but when Kun looks out the window it’s already dark outside.

 

Kun still won’t watch Independiente matches, can’t. But there are re-runs of La Liga games on one of the channels on his TV and he watches those sometimes. He never mentions it to Leo, how he watches his debut, the _blaugrana_ jersey drowning his form. He never tells him about watching his goals, crying out with joy alongside him as he celebrates.

 

He tries not to dwell on the ugly jealousy that rises in him, the phantom ache for the familiar touch of a ball hitting his boot. Some nights he’s not sure if he wants to be Leo or if he just wants to be there, playing alongside him and watching his magic up close.

 

Months pass. His parents start making noises about him going back to school, finishing high school like a normal kid, not a crippled ex-footballer with thirty career goals under his belt.

 

It’s so boring.

 

He’s complaining about it to Leo on their weekly phone call when Leo surprises him (he does that a lot).

 

“Come stay with me in Barcelona, for a while,” Leo suggests and Kun is left speechless. “I just moved into a new apartment and there’s plenty to do here.”

 

“I don’t think I can do that. The plane ticket alone…” Kun won’t allow himself to use the money for anything other than his family’s needs. A plane ticket to Barcelona costs money they can’t afford to lose.

 

“I’ll take care of it. They pay me well enough, trust me,” Leo says and he’s got that tone, kind of like he’s rolling his eyes at Kun in exasperation.

 

“But…”

 

“It’s lonely here. Please come?” he adds, and Kun just sighs, because how is he going to say no to that.

 

Two weeks later, his bags are packed and his family is waving him a tearful goodbye from the airport terminal.

 

When he steps off the plane in Barcelona, Leo is waiting.

  


*

  


Leo’s favorite color is sky blue, he’s unreasonably fond of a disgustingly

sweet grape soda they only sell in Barcelona and he still carries around a grainy picture of their old dog Diego.

  


*

  


Leo’s house is big and imposing, and all the lights are off. The walls are almost bare, there are no carpets on the floor and it’s as far removed from Kun’s family apartment in Buenos Aires as possible. The sight of it hits him with a wave of homesickness and he panics for moment. But then Leo comes to stand at his elbow, close enough that Kun can feel his quick breathing, and the feeling goes away.

 

“Sorry, it’s really empty. I didn’t have time to go shopping yet,” Leo says, the tips of his ears turning red.

 

“Leo, you don’t even have a couch,” Kun does his level best to sound as serious as possible even though there’s a smile twitching in the corner of his mouth.

 

“I kind of have a couch.”

 

“Two chairs with a blanket thrown over them don’t count. We’re going shopping tomorrow.” Kun had never shopped for furniture before, never had the means or the space, but he’s not going to let Leo live like this for a day longer.

 

“But training…”

 

“Training doesn’t go till five in the afternoon, right? So pick me up after. Bring your credit card. And also, ask your teammates where to go.”

 

“I’ll ask Geri-” “Nope, try again.” “Fine, Xavi then.”

 

*

 

Furniture shopping is at the same time harder and easier than what Kun expected. Harder, because he still felt like he should barter when there’s a number on the price tag higher than single digits and also, because he has to briefly sit down on the couch when he sees it’s price tag. Leo is suspiciously calm through the whole ordeal, unless there’s a sales person approaching them, in which case he hides behind Kun or the nearest lampshade.

  


Still, it’s easy in a way that all things with Leo are easy. When it boils down to it, they have similar taste in most things (which is why the couch is a sinfully comfortable orange monstrosity) and they have an uncanny ability for teamwork (Kun tries to charm the sales person with his sparkling personality and when it doesn’t work, Leo juggles a pillow and three lighting fixtures, impressing them into a discount).

 

At the end of the day, they not only have a couch, but two new beds, a kitchen table big enough to sit ten people (but no chairs), a set of pots, and five bedside lamps. Oh, and two bean bags shaped like footballs. Of course.

 

*

 

Neither of them are great cooks. In fact, the first two weeks they live entirely on leftovers Leo’s mom left behind, microwave dinners and lots of müsli. Week three, Kun decides he’s had enough and calls his mom, has her walk him through her most simple recipe.

 

Miraculously, it doesn’t end in disaster. Leo comes home from training and wolfs it down with compliments.

 

So Kun makes it every night for the next two weeks, consequently putting them off it for the rest of their lives.

Eventually, Kun amasses more than a handful of simple recipes. The kitchen becomes a space he’s comfortable in, arranged in a way that suits.

He reads the nutrition books that the club’s dietician lends him and bakes Leo cookies to take to the first training of the season. He means it as a joke, but Leo comes back with rave reviews from everyone. Apparently Xavi really likes the ones with apricot jam and is asking if Kun would be willing to bake some more for his birthday.

 

Kun’s still not sure how this became his life, but he’ll take it, basks in the look that Leo gives him every time he makes him a new Dulche de leche dessert.

  


*

  


“Hey, Kun, Dinho is coming for dinner today, is that okay?”

 

“...Dinho as in Ronaldinho.”

 

“Yes, of course, how many do we know?”

 

“He’s coming to dinner. FC Barcelona’s top scorer this season is coming to dinner.”

 

“Yeah. He wants to finally meet you and I think he lives mostly on takeout right now. Can he come?”

 

“You tell me that now, when I haven’t had time to go to the grocery store at all!”

 

“I can tell him to come some other day?”

 

“No, no, what are you talking about, bring him over so he doesn’t starve.”

 

After the phone call ends, Kun gives himself a moment where he questions the life choices that’d lead him to becoming his mother, and then goes off to defrost the chicken.

 

*

 

Kun decides to get into gardening, because he helps the old lady down the lane in hers and it doesn’t seem all that difficult. He plants twenty roses all around the house, excitedly reading the labels and imagining the beautiful blooms.

 

Half of them die in the first year.

 

He cries about it, a bit. Leo hugs him and tries to comfort him, and he never ever tells him that it’s stupid to cry over flowers, which Kun appreciates.

 

But after that, he slowly gets the hang of it. The roses bloom and the pictures don’t do them justice. The jasmine tree he plants starts growing and filling the air with its sweet scent. They eat lettuce and tomato from their garden for dinner.

 

Leo loves spending time in the garden and he often makes a beeline for the back porch after training. He and Kun sit on the straw patio furniture and drink a few beers, breathing in the sweet scent of the flowers until night falls and the fireflies come out.

 

Sometimes, Leo lays with his head in Kun’s lap, quiet and calm, the tension in his frame disappearing as Kun strokes his fingers through his hair.

 

Kun still can’t believe his life sometimes, that Lionel Messi, whose face is splayed over a thousand billboards all over the world, should want to spend his afternoons in Kun’s garden, in his company.

 

 

He loves to see Leo play, loves the savage joy in it, the lit-up brilliance, but he’s also beginning to realize that he likes Leo best like this; soft and trusting, briefly belonging only to Kun and the fireflies.

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

 

Leo hates making speeches. 

 

He’s not good at talking under usual circumstances, but add an audience and a stuffy suit in the equation and he’s utterly useless. Usually, that doesn’t matter. Usually, he can let his feet do the talking.

 

Except that this time, he can’t get out of it, and the PR people had told him point blank that they expected him to make a speech at some charity event that he and the club are involved in, and he manages not to immediately throw up on them, but it’s a near thing.

 

It feels like the scariest thing he’s ever done. Give him a host of revenge bent defenders and he’d rather face them than this speech any day.

 

Kun helps. Kun makes him flashcards and then listens to him stumble through them over and over again. Leo stands in the middle of their living room and focuses on his lines, while Kun watches on from the orange thing they call a couch, listening attentively.

 

Leo finds that looking at him, patient and focused, makes some of his worries melt away, helps him speak with more confidence.

 

“I wish you could come with me,” he confesses to Kun in a lull between practices. 

 

“Well,” Kun says, grinning like he does when he’s got a particularly good joke up his sleeve, “I probably can. The invitation says it’s plus one and you don’t have a date.”

 

Leo frowns thoughtfully, watches as Kun’s grin loses some of its luster during the silence. The thought hadn’t occurred to him, but now that Kun’s pointed it out, it sounds unexpectedly appealing.

 

“Would you?”

 

“What?” Kun looks unexpectedly surprised considering the whole thing was his idea. 

 

“Be my date for the party,” Leo says, feeling a bolt of instant relief at having Kun’s comforting support there. It briefly occurs to him that he should probably examine that feeling. He doesn’t.

 

It’s rare that he sees Kun speechless, much less blushing. It makes his own cheeks warm and he looks away from Kun, to their TV that’s stuck on some football match replay.

 

“Yeah, sure.”

 

Leo whips back to look at Kun in surprise. He’s smiling again and as usual, it makes Leo want to smile back.

 

“You’ll do it?”

 

“I’ll be your date to the magical ball, prince Leo.”

 

“Does this mean you’ll wear a dress?”

 

“It certainly means you’re paying for my tux.”

  
  


*

  
  


The speech, when it comes, feels even worse than he’d imagined. He’s shaking with nerves, sweating bullets in his stuffy suit and thinking with increasing longing of the notes he’s got hidden in his sleeve. He’s aware of his leg bouncing under the table and hopes, somewhat desperately, that the other people sitting at the table won’t notice. They’re all big name Socios, directors of companies or head of old families. It’d be awful if he offended one of them by making their plate shake into their lap.

 

Then, Kun put his hand on his knee, a warm comforting weight and for a moment, everything stills. It’s like he’s back home, on their couch, Kun drifting into his personal space like he tends to when he’s sleepy or sad or happy. 

 

It makes it easier to stand up when they call his name and recite the few lines he’s memorized. He doesn’t mess it up and when he sits back down, shaky with relief, it’s to Kun’s proud beaming grin.

 

Predictably, Kun’s already charmed the whole table. They’re all taken by his curiosity and laughing at his jokes, and slowly, ever so slowly, Leo relaxes and lets Kun draw him into the conversation. 

  
  


*

  
  


Barbecue at Dinho’s is the best, because he has a pool and actually orders a caterer instead of falling into screaming fits over potato salad like Deco sometimes does or attempting to operate the grill with the sheer force of his laser stare (Xavi). 

 

It leaves them all free to relax and mingle, though Kun does insist on making something he calls an Nectarine mascarpone tart to bring with them. He’s very proud of it, especially when Dinho dips a finger into the filling to pronounce it ‘amazing’ and tell Kun he’s a ‘cooking crack’. 

 

Leo tries not to frown over how doing the same thing would have him yelled at by Kun, and how he certainly wouldn’t be rewarded by a brilliant smile. He’s not jealous. He isn’t.

 

The bad thing about barbecue at Dinho’s is that it’s hot late August in Barcelona, and that everyone is wearing as little clothes as possible. Leo’s a little late for the party, because he’s had to stay back at training for some talks with the manager with Xavi and Puyi, so he doesn’t see Kun until he walks through the giant French doors and onto the patio.

.

Kun is talking to someone Leo thinks might be Puyi’s girlfriend, but he’s a little distracted, because Kun is wearing a thin cotton T-shirt that’s soaked transparent and the tiniest, shortest jeans cutoffs that he’s ever seen in his life.

 

They end high on Kun’s thigh, exposing miles of tanned skin, down to his knobbly knees, the white line of his scar on the surface of one of his shins, tapering into his surprisingly big feet and-

 

Leo walks right into the pool.

 

It’s not a bad place to be, he thinks, sputtering up to the surface. At least the bottom of the pool doesn’t have Kun running around half-naked, and if he drools it’s invisible in the water.

 

When he wades out to the edge of the pool accompanied by his teammates’ hooting laughter, Kun’s waiting for him, hand outstretched and concern written all over his face.

 

“Were you not watching where you were going?” he asks. “You’re a professional footballer, shouldn’t your coordination be better than this?”

 

Leo mutters something under his breath that could have been anything, but is actually, “half your ass is hanging out,” then grabs Kun’s outstretched hand and  _ pulls _ .

 

It leads to an epic water fight that the whole team gets involved in and by the end it feels like there’s more water dripping off the patio than there in the pool. But Kun floats next to him in the shallow water, laughing, his hair plastered to his forehead and Leo doesn’t know if it’s sunburn that’s burning the tops of his cheeks, or if he’s blushing from the white flash of his teeth.

 

That’s when he realizes he might have himself a bit of a problem.

 

*

 

These moments keep happening, over and over, with increasing frequency.

 

Kun always wakes up before him and makes breakfast, and by the time Leo pads into the kitchen, his bare feet chilly on the tiled floor, Kun will already be sitting in the breakfast nook, drinking tea and reading a newspaper, and it takes a whole lot of self-control to not graze his fingers over the tips of his tanned shoulders as Leo walks by to grab a plate.

 

Kun takes care of his schedules, or actually, Kun makes his schedules, and pretty much unofficially runs Leo’s charity and his social media and calls Leo’s nutritionist by her first name (and sends her a Christmas card).

 

Kun makes lunch and dinner, and sometimes Leo helps him with baking cookies for new teammates or new neighbours or for the little old lady down the road.

 

Kun falls asleep on his shoulder when they watch a movie, clutching at the thin cotton of Leo’s T-shirt in his sleep like Leo might leave if he lets go. 

 

Leo knows it’s still hard for him to watch football matches sometimes, but Kun comes to all of Leo’s home games and yells himself hoarse.

 

And maybe it’s becoming increasingly difficult to taper down his instinct to kiss Kun goodbye before he leaves the house, or to turn him around in his arms so he’s laying on Leo’s chest and drooling into his T-shirt, or to follow Kun into his room instead of his own at night when he’s tired and stumbling.

  
  


*

  
  


The thing is, he knows he loves Kun. Kun is family now, has settled himself into the space behind Leo’s ribcage, in between the small bones of his ankles, has carved himself a home in Leo’s bones, and that means Leo loves him, calmly and steadily like he loves everything else that means home.

 

But sometimes he almost thinks that what he feels for Kun is a bit different still. Sometimes catching Kun’s eyes across the room will feel like the first impression of his cleats in freshly mown stadium grass, his heart rate exploding in his chest from anxiety or excitement or a mixture of both.

 

Sometimes Kun’s head thunking on his shoulder will feel like a ball leaving his foot to swish into the back of the net. The shape of his cheekbones will mimic a perfect run and the bow of his mouth the bend of a free kick.

 

Sometimes Leo feels like he loves Kun the way he loves football, desperately and unconditionally, aching in the tendons of his muscles, in the hollows of his bones.

 

The thing is, he’s perfectly willing to admit that he can’t live without football, but accepting that maybe he can’t live without Kun either is much more difficult.

  
  


*

  
  


At one point, Leo decides that enough is enough, something has to change. He always asks for help when he’s struggling with football, so why not this?

 

Eventually he decides on asking Puyi. He’d dismissed Geri and Cesc out of hand, because the two of them are actual human disasters and Leo’s sure they’ll only offer useless advice like ‘take of your shirt!’ and ‘grow a beard!’. He also reluctantly dismisses Xavi, because Xavi is just as likely to pull a prank on him as he is about giving him serious advice, because sometimes he can’t help being a little shit. He also decides against going to either Andres or Victor, because he’s certain that the two of them popped out of the womb married already and they probably wouldn’t be familiar with this sort of uncertainty. 

 

So he decides to talk to Puyi, because most of the time, captain really does know best.

 

“Hey, Puyi,” he murmurs to him one day after practice, “can you stay behind for a bit? I need to talk to you.”

 

Puyi nods and frowns, but that’s okay, he’s usually frowning a little bit, it comes with the position.

 

It seems to Leo that the locker room takes much longer to empty than usual, but eventually it does and he’s left alone with the empty bench and Puyi’s expectant stare.

 

He opens his mouth and nothing comes out, so he closes it again, looking at Puyi helplessly. A few more minutes pass. Eventually, Puyi breaks the silence.

 

“Leo?” he asks. “You wanted to talk?”

 

Leo nods slowly, mind racing. His palms are sweating. Distantly, he remembers he never told Kun he might be later than usual leaving the training grounds. He hopes Kun doesn’t wait with dinner.

 

“I...I don’t know how to ask,” he eventually says, and goes back to staring at Puyi imploringly, cursing himself that he didn’t ask to have this conversation on a football field, because maybe that way he wouldn’t have to talk and the other guys could just read his mind instead, like they already seem to.

 

“Okay. Listen, Leo, is this about the Chelsea offer? Because you know I can’t give you any unbiased advice, and you know the team doesn’t want to lose you…” Puyi says all in a rush, but Leo is already frowning and shaking his head.

 

“No! I’m not leaving! It’s not about that, it’s not about football, it’s...personal.”

 

“Oh, okay. That’s a relief.” And it does seem like Puyi relaxes a little in his seat, sprawling, rather a little like a sleeping lion. “What personal thing?”

 

Leo takes a deep breath, fixes his gaze on the tile and, “It’s about Kun!” It all comes out of him in a rush. He tells Puyi about Kun moving in, about him becoming a part of Leo’s life, about the feelings that he’s been having. 

 

It’s probably more than he’s ever talked in Puyi’s presence, ever.

 

Finally, the torrent of words stops and he gathers the courage to look up at Puyi’s face, only to realize Puyi is frowning, which causes him immediately to panic.

 

He’s sort of assumed that Puyi wouldn’t be homophobic, because he seems okay with Andres and Victor, but they’re still playing in one of the most homophobic sports in the world, so maybe Leo was wrong about this, maybe he was supposed to keep quiet instead.

 

Finally, Puyi speaks, and his voice cuts through Leo’s panicked thoughts the way it always does.

 

“The thing is,” he says, “we all just sort of assumed that you and Kun were together already?”

 

“Oh,” is all Leo can say. “Um, since when?”

 

“Well, since always, I guess. When you introduced him, I thought you were introducing us to your boyfriend.” Puyi says, and he’s still frowning, but there’s something like a smile playing round the edges of his lips, and Leo wonders what’s so amusing.

 

“But...why would you think that?” Leo is confused. This isn’t how he foresaw the conversation.

 

“Well,” Puyi shifts in his seat, obviously thinking, “he looks at you a little bit like you’ve hung the moon in the sky, and I don’t just mean when you play, he does it all the time. And you smile more around him and laugh. Like you do when you score a hattrick or something.”

 

“Kun is my hattrick?” Leo repeats dumbly, and Puyi sighs and puts his head into his hands.

 

“Look, okay, so the surprise of absolutely everyone who knows you, you two actually aren’t together. But you like him?” Leo nods. “You want to be his boyfriend?” Leo nods again, slower. “And does he feel the same?”

 

Leo shakes his head helplessly. “I don’t know,” he says, and it occurs to him, that in all this giant crisis he’s been having, he never once considered the possibility of Kun liking him back. “Does he really look at me like...like…”

 

“Like he’s a plant in the desert and you’re the first water he’s seen in years? Yeah,” Puyi says with an indulgent smile.

 

“Since when are you so poetic, Capi?” The banter makes him feel a little bit like he’s on solid ground and it’s almost worth it for the embarrassed flush on Puyi’s face. “Have you been borrowing Victor’s romance novels again?”

 

“You could stand with reading one or two, kid,” Puyi says, reaching out to ruffle his hair, smiling wryly. “Then maybe you wouldn’t have to come to your poor old captain for love advice.”

 

Leo opens his mouth to apologize, but Puyi shakes his head, laughs, “It’s fine. But I don’t really need all the details, okay?”

 

“As if!” Leo says, aware that he’s flushing again. 

 

“So are you ready to get your man?” Puyi asks, standing up, and Leo follows, on wobbly knees. “You know what you’ll say?”

 

Leo doesn’t, exactly. He hasn’t gotten any better at speeches anyway. But for Kun, he’ll try to figure it out.

 

*

 

He drives home, but when he walks into the house, it’s empty. There’s no sign of Kun anywhere, but the patio door is open, so Leo walks through it numbly until he’s standing on the edge of it, searching the garden for any sight of him.

 

Kun is putting up laundry. Leo watches him from the patio, struggling to throw a sheet over the laundry line. It’s Leo’s, the cotton one with footballs on it that Kun bought for him as a joke gift, but Leo ended up falling in love with it anyway.

 

“Kun!” he calls out, and his voice sounds weird and over-loud, echoing in the yard. Kun turns around and the sheet almost slips from his fingers for the uptenth time, but his face twists into a smile when he spots Leo, and he waves.

 

“Kun!” Leo yells again. “Kun, I love you!”

 

It’s late afternoon in Barcelona, and spring’s settled in earnest among the flowers and the trees, and the warm air is giving in to the crispness of the evening. The wind blows, bringing with it the scent of jasmine and fluttering the sheets gently around Kun’s figure.

 

“Leo, you dumbass!” Kun yells back, “I love you too, you’re my best friend, now come help me hang this sheet!”

 

Leo’s got no idea why Kun insisted on making the laundry line so high, when both him and Leo aren’t tall enough to reach it on its tallest point, but he’s just gotten to accepting it as one of those Kun things.

 

“No, Kun, you don’t understand! I’m in love with you!”

 

He can see the moment when Kun gets it, because the sheet drops from his fingers and flops onto the grass, and his eyes open wide, his mouth slack in shock. And then the wind picks up, raising the sheets and cutting off his view.

 

When he next sees him, a second later, Kun is running, across the grass and up the stairs, in a pace that must be murder on his knee, and Leo steps forward to meet him, their bodies colliding on the edge of painful, the clutch of Kun’s hands on his shirt just shy of desperate.

 

They stop, like that. Bodies pressed together, fingers grasping at cloth, both their chests heaving even though Kun was the only one running.

 

“Say it again,” Kun says, barely a whisper. 

 

“I love you,” Leo whispers back, like they’re still kids, talking about dreams in the dead of the night in a too-empty bedroom, somehow expecting for his voice to get distorted by static, even though they aren’t 17 anymore and Kun’s in his arms instead of Argentina. 

 

It feels like he could have said it then and have it still be true.

 

“I love you too,” Kun says, and his voice is sure, like he practiced it, and his eyes are liquid and dark, and then they’re kissing, pressed together on their patio, the sunset drawing shadows across their faces, the quiet rustle of leaves as their backdrop.

  
  


*

  
  


It should feel new, kissing Kun, their edges struggling to fit together, their bodies racing to catch up with their hearts, but it isn’t, somehow. 

 

It feels like instead, Kun’s found all his cracks and poured himself into them, like he’s holding Leo together like glue. Like their edges have been smoothed ages ago, still jagged and sharp to anyone else, but fitting together with no gaps.

 

Everything with him and Kun has always felt easy, it makes sense that this would be too.

 

*

 

“Be honest, did you wear the booty shorts just to get my attention?”

 

“Well, it worked didn’t it? Vanessa suggested it.”

 

“Puyi’s girlfriend?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“You’d almost think they were conspiring against us.”

 

“They probably were. I don’t care. Kiss me again?”

 

“Whenever you want.”

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> The Doble Visera is the common name for Independiente's stadium, the Estadio Libertadores de América. The chant is real. Oscar Ustari is a goalkeeper who used to play with Kun at Independiente and also with Kun and Leo at the U21s. Him and Kun were pretty close.
> 
> The timeline is a bit weird on this, but they start living together during the first year of Leo playing for the senior team. Deco, Ronaldinho and Xavi were all his teammates, Cesc and Geri were in England. And Puyi didn't meet Vanessa till much later but hey, artistic licence.
> 
> As ever, comments are absolutely appreciated.


End file.
